Wednesday, January 30, 2013

You probably know by now that I hail from Louisiana, I went to LSU, and love all things Cajun. But you may not know that I did a lot of growing up in Houston, TX. And you probably don't know that my youngest sister lived most of her life in Houston and even though she now goes to LSU herself her heart belongs to Texas. So when she asked me to make her some Texas wall art I wasn't surprised. A little heart broken but not surprised.

She wanted something rustic, with colors that matched her room, and was in the shape of Texas. Soooo....

After driving down the back alleys of Altus (in our town we don't take the trash out to the curb on a certain day of the week; we have alley ways in all the neighborhoods with dumpsters. Perfect for dumpster diving!) I found some great scrap wood (and even an old window) to create the perfect Texas wall hanging for my sis.

Before I cut my pieces down I enlarged an image of the state of Texas to my preferred size using Photoshop to use as a template. Then printed it out in sections. (See more on this process in this post here.)

After I had my Texas template all sized up and cut I proceeded to cut my wood down to approximate sizes. Then painted it.

I then glued all wood pieces to one large piece of masonite board (This is all I had on hand, 1/4 plywood would have been a good choice as well.) and let it set overnight.) This will serve as a way to hold all my board together before I cut them out.

Once my glue was set I traced my Texas Template onto the boards. And using a Jigsaw I cut it out.

After all was dry and after a coat of poly my Texas Wall Hanging is finished!

Check out that distressing!

I added a little heart where Houston would be:

I like this how this turned out so much that I'm thinking of making a Louisiana one for myself!